For my final paper, I’d like to study and observe Native American tribes and their relationships with the mountains that were once their homes such as the Sioux with The Black Hills of South Dakota and the Blackfeet Nation of Montana (mainly because there is a lot of material). I wanted to compare and contrast their ideologies and try to relate them with Sherpa culture if there is any common theme that can be shared, also discuss the shift from a sacred place to more of an exploitation of resources for wealth, similar to that of Everest. It’d be interesting to find out being as there is a vast amount of miles that separate these ethnic groups but seems to have relatable avenues.

 

Sources:

Sundstrom, Linea. 1996. “Mirror of Heaven: Cross-cultural Transference of the Sacred Geography of the Black Hills”. World Archaeology 28 (2). Taylor & Francis, Ltd.: 177–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/125069.

The Mirror of Heaven is my most important source thus far. Sundstrom discusses the importance of the mountains regarding all Native tribes that have inhabited the mountains and why the Sioux are famously associated with the Black Hills. She discusses the culture down to the cosmology of stars and how they relate to the mountains in a spiritual way, sun dances and ceremonies that were conducted in accordance with the mountains, and in a nutshell why they are important to the Sioux tribes.

Miller, David B.. 1988. “Historian’s View of S. 705: The Sioux Nation Black Hills Bill”. Wicazo Sa Review 4 (1). University of Minnesota Press: 55–59. doi:10.2307/1409088.

CARBAUGH, DONAL, and LISA RUDNICK. 2006. “WHICH PLACE, WHAT STORY? CULTURAL DISCOURSES AT THE BORDER OF THE BLACKFEET RESERVATION AND GLACIER NATIONAL PARK”. Great Plains Quarterly 26 (3). University of Nebraska Press: 167–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23533732.

Jay Hansford C. Vest. 1988. “Traditional Blackfeet Religion and the Sacred Badger-two Medicine Wildlands”. Journal of Law and Religion 6 (2). Cambridge University Press: 455–89. doi:10.2307/1051160.